Hello one and all. I currently have a couple of demijons of sloe gin on the go and am still drinking the last of the 2004 vintage. It recently occured to me that there is an awfully boring gap between bottling one "run" and picking the berries for the next. A friend recently suggested we do a rumtopf during the summer to keep us busy. This is a great idea but for two things, I don't have a rumtopf jar and am not exactly what to put in one anyway.
And so to my questions.
Does anyone know where in the UK I can get a rumtopf jar, and does anyone have any recipe ideas for what to put in one.
I will be eternally grateful for any information.

Hello Philf,
I have been making Rumtopf for the last 30 years, ever since I married a German. You can buy stonewear and glass jars with the word 'Rumtopf' on them, but to be honest any large wide necked jar large enough will do. I have seen big biscuit jars around that would do the job nicely you have until the strawberry season to find one because they have to be the first fruit you use.
The basic recipe is;
300 - 500 g Strawberries
200 - 250g suagr
Wash and dry the berries put them into the pot sprinkle the sugar over them and leave for half an hour before covering strawberries with 54% rum(two fingers above). It is not easy to get 54% over here but Lidle's do a good one.
Close the pot tightly. My pot is stonewear so I alway use greasproof paper between the pot and lid.
Put the pot in a cool place and give it a gentle swizzle round every 2-3 days or stir with a SILVER spoon. Take care stirring with anything else because it can turn the rumtopf.
After strawberries comes the other fruit as it is in season each time you add more fruit you also add rum to two fingers above the fruit
250 g goosberries with 125 g sugar
250g sweet cherries with 125 g sugar
250 redcurrents 125 sugar
250 blackcurrents with 125 sugar
250g raspbeerries 125 g sugar
250 apricots (take the stones out) 125g sugar
2250 sour cherries 125g sugar
250g peaches (take stones out) 125g sugar
Lastly 250 pears (peeled, cored and sliced) 125g sugar
After the first couple of weeks you only need to give it a bit of a gentle shake/swizzle every 14 days.
End of October start of November add half a bottle of 54% rum.
Tastes very nice with vanilla pudding, rice pudding or my fav with vanilla icecream. Traditionally it is eaten from the start of Advent.

Hi Grace,
I just measured up and my jar takes just over 3 litres so just half my quantities as a rough guide. Of course German housewives all have their own variation on the theme and the recipe I gave above is a basic one from an old cookbook I have had for over 30 years and it works for me. We just have to make slight adaptations according to the fruit at hand, you know if you have lemons you make lemonade, and if you have lots of good stawberries you have rumtopf with extra strawberries. So long as the fruit is all of a good quality.
Love to know if you make some and if you enjoy it. We are supposed to visit Germany this spring and I shall be buying some 54% rum from a company called Pott for this summer's batch trouble is I have a husband who thinks it should be used as hot toddy drink when he has a cold
Elizabeth

Opps sorry I did not notice this posting, these crocks don't have seals so you do need to use the greaseproof paper, oh and most of your fruit will go an interesting sort of brown colour but don't worry about that. Be sure to keep the topf in a cool place, oh and the old folks used to say you should never use a metal spoon, plastic wood or I guess silver is fine.
Elizabeth

Just went into the garden after a couple of weeks of inattention to find it overloaded with raspberries, blackcurrants, gooseberries and some curious mini alpine strawberries that have encroached from the neighbours. So off I went to try a Rumtopf having wanted to do it for years. Couldn't face either gooseberries or going to Lidl for extra strength brandy but I now have a gorgeously smelling jar of fruit that stubbornly refuses to allow the rum to cover it by 2 fingers and I am planning xmas desserts.